Unprocessed

I don't think I have ever read a memoir quite like Megan Kimble's. In fact the only time I will really read a memoir is if the author is someone I really want to know more about. However, her year long challenge to see if she could go without eating anything that is processed, was something I was truly interested in, especially after watching, Super Size Me, and watching how processed fast food impacts the body. I was more than pleasantly surprised after sitting down and reading this from cover to cover in one sitting and asking myself if I could do the same thing Megan did. My outcome, probably not, but I loved living vicariously through her while she did so on a very meager budget I might add.

When you think about it, most of the food we eat outside of fruits and vegetables are mostly processed in order to preserve shelf life and to last longer than it would without all those additives we seriously never considered what they do and if they are good for our bodies. I mean, they wouldn't be able to sell the stuff on the supermarket shelves if they did right? You might be just as surprised as I was after reading this. As Megan experiences things such as learning how to make bread, the old fashioned way, and what is the right grains to use, yes, she becomes a younger version of Martha Stewart and buys a grinder. She learns what it means by "rule of thumb" and how through trial and error manages to pull of home made bread that calls to her after she finishes baking it in the over. She shares with us all that even those tried and true places we believe may in fact be healthy like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, might in fact not be as innocent and healthy as we thought.

She takes you on a journey not only how things are made, but at the conclusion of each chapter, she shares her secrets on how to make things like sea salt, bread, chocolate, how to can tomatoes, how to make your own almond milk, and so much more. For someone like me, this book is chalk full of great facts like knowing for example that 90% of our sodium intake is from processed food and only 10% is added by us in our daily diet. What the difference is between all those brands of sugars, raw and natural as well as artificial sweeteners, along with the differences between all those milk products we find, which is truly the best for our body and why we are often lactose intolerant. You might be more than surprised. I applaud her efforts to pulling this off and I learned quite a bit about reading my labels more accurately and supporting local farmer's markets to sell strictly organic, pesticide and antibiotic free produce and meat. We may not be able to change how supermarkets sell produce but we can decide how to spend the money we earn in a better way to support small co-ops and organic farmers and dairies.

I received Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food by Megan Kimble compliments of William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable review aside from a free copy of the book, and the opinions expressed are strictly my own personal. For this reader, I may decide to take up canning if done properly to ensure I have some great produce available when it is out of season, and now found some new uses for my food processor. Overall, well written, informative, and engaging to keep me interested in finishing this in one sitting, thus a 5 out of 5 star rating in this reader's opinion.

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Unprocessed by Megan Kimble

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